From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Fri May 23 2003 - 10:15:42 MDT
I would like to see more emphasis on the psychological, especially the
notion of 'props', things which hold us up psychologically. For
instance, I'm overweight and plain looking, but also (modestly speaking)
supposedly possessed of genius-level IQ, so my pride in my own
intelligence is (to me), a 'prop' which lets me believe I'm superior to
most people. (It wasn't till I started working with computers that I had
people around me who I didn't think were friggin' idiots).
Picture Joe Sixpack though, working in some factory somewhere, and he
has to call his boss 'sir'. On TV he sees reporters asking the president
questions, and the reporters are far from deferential. Sometimes (though
not much of late) they seem downright hostile.
For example, a reporter might say 'Isn't this tax cut a blatant gift to
the wealthiest Americans?' instead of something like 'Oh! Dear
President, we of limited insight and intelligence fail to grasp the
extraordinary genius of your tax cut plan. If you could, might you
explain the job-creation aspects again in terms comprehensible to our
shallow, limited minds?'.
Joe Sixpack sees this and thinks the reporters are some sort of weird
offshoot of humanity. Sure 'nuff, they're _liberals_. Well, by God, this
president is one guy I can stand behind, and if he says Osama bin
Hussein of Iraq has WMD ready to launch any minute now against the US
then it must be true.
-Mike
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